#wheeleroregon

Railriders Cycling: Oregon Coast runs three routes along the renowned beauty of the Tillamook County shoreline, running on tracks of the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad and sharing space with the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad. The three routes currently on offer form one of three operations in the Northwest established by Kim and Anita Metlen, the pioneers of organized railbiking in Oregon and Washington. I rode the two routes described below on June 20th and 21st, 2019, although I unfortunately didn’t have time to schedule the Wheeler South route into my travel plans. 

Vitals

Phone: 541-786-6165

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://ocrailriders.com/

Check-in Locations

Bay City to Tillamook: 5400 Hayes Oyster Drive, Bay City, OR

Wheeler North and South: 130 Marine Drive, Wheeler, OR

The Routes

The Wheeler North and South routes both start at a turnoff of in the north end of Wheeler, just as Highway 101 enters town. The 9-mile (14.5 km) round-trip Wheeler North route runs out of town along a vineyard and past dairy pastures before running on a trestle over the Nehalem River and then through ferny Northwestern forest.

As noted in the introduction, I was unfortunately unable (or too absent-minded?) to fit the 10-mile (16 km) round-trip Wheeler South route into my travel plans. However, as I describe in greater detail in the Travel Notes below, my bicycle ride down the coast took me along the tracks where it was easy to appreciate the views offered along the Nehalem Bay. I’ll have to return to the area to ride this route.

The Bay City route also starts starts along Highway 101, 17 miles (27 km) to the south of Wheeler and just north of Tillamook. The 12-mile (19 km) round-trip ride commences by what I took to be the world’s largest mound of oyster shells (see the intro photo above), but when describing it to my Connecticut coast born and bred mother, she made it sound as if 3-story heaps of blue point shells were round every corner in Bridgeport and Norwalk. The route offers a mix of Tillamook Bay views and open farmland, crossing many bridges and trestles over wildlife filled bogs, all under the hills of the Northern Oregon Coast Range.

As noted above, the three routes described here are part of a larger family of railbike tours founded by Kim and Anita Metlen, who deserve great admiration for the work they’ve done to promote cycling and recreation in the Northwest.

The routes stand out from others I’ve pedalled in that the line is still formally active and under the jurisdiction of the Federal Railroad Administration. While the line doesn’t currently handle freight in the vicinity of the railbike operations, the railbikes do share track with the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, subjecting the railbikes to federal safety regulations that treat them as inspection vehicles. The result is that riders wear safety vests and Railrider Cycling staff members are trained to operate safely in the manner of railroad maintenance workers. Given that I was riding my bicycle between the routes in northwestern drizzle, I was already wearing a high-vis raincoat and qualified to ride directly without an additional vest.

The line was originally constructed between 1906 and 1911 by the Pacific Railway and Navigation Company (PRN) to carry timber and agricultural products over the Northern Oregon Coast Range to Portland. Given the arduousness of maintaining a railroad in sopping coastal terrain, the line was dubbed Punk Rotten Nasty (PRN) by its workers. It was taken over by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1916, and then the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad as a shortline in 1990. Major storms in 1990, 1996 and 2007 segmented the line and mostly cut it off from the national network, although it has not been formerly decommissioned from future revenue service and a portion of the port operations, far from the segment used by the railbikes, still serves at least one lumber yard.

The Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad has been running excursion trains on the line since 2003. Raiilriders Cycling: Oregon Coast began the Bay City railbike route in 2016, and then expanded to the Wheeler North route in 2018 and the Wheeler South route in 2019.

The Vehicles

While all of the Railriders Cycling sites use a variant of the Railriders aluminum-framed and polyurethane-wheeled concept, the four-seat vehicles at  Raiilriders Cycling: Oregon Coast regularly undergo creative re-engineering to ensure maximum performance and reliability. I rode the Wheeler North route with site manager Nate Bell (with Tara, half of the lovely couple running the three routes), who described his work in the engineering and economics of preventing wheel and hub wear, shaft flexion, and other concepts familiar to my work in railroad operations. Nate has been involved in the construction of all Railcyclers railbikes and told me that the “railbikes are ever-evolving, it’s the fun part about making them!”.

To my view, the quality of vehicle hardware was found in the seats, seat belts, and use of proven components such as Shimano chain tensioners.

Travel Notes

I pedalled the sites described above as part of a rail and cycling journey through the Northwest, reaching the coast after several days of enjoying the bikey-beery offerings of Portland. The obvious way to reach the coastal railbiking sites is by car, but I did find another option readers might enjoy. I picked up a folding bicycle in Portland, which I took on the Northwest Point bus to Cannon Beach, and then rode the 18 miles (30 km) to Wheeler to pedal the railbikes. Conveniently, both the seat and bike reservation can purchased through the Amtrak app on a smart phone. The Salmonberry Saloon in Wheeler offers fresh, local seafood and views of the Nehalem River.

After railbiking in Wheeler, I continued cycling south on the coast for another 17 (27 km) miles to Bay City to spend the night before railbiking there. I stayed in a cabin at the the Sheltered Nook, which I found on AirBnB and highly recommend. After leaving Bay City the next day, it was a short 5.5 mile (8.8 km) ride to Tillamook where I caught the NW Connector bus (bike rack on the front and space aboard) back to Portland.

Here is the beauty of riding a folding bike along the Oregon Coast:

I hope that it’s apparent to any reader of this blog that, in addition to the post-apocalyptic attraction of pedalling carts along former economically critical infrastructure, I find pleasure and diversion in mobility. To that end, I offer this photo of progressive Portland, where urban mobility hits its resonant frequency in the point convergence of an aerial tramway, streetcar, bikeshare dock, and parking for about 400 bicycles. (and I took the photo from a pedestrian bridge alongside an outdoor, urban elevator where a scootershare was carelessly left in the way)...(and the blue thing in the upper left is a crane for loading and unloading barges on the Willamette River)...